 NASA
Spaceweather News - Two
coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are heading for Earth. The pair
were hurled into space by explosions near the giant sunspot 9393
on Wednesday and Thursday. Forecasters estimate a 20 to 30% chance
of severe geomagnetic storming when the CMEs strike our planet's
magnetosphere Friday or perhaps early Saturday.
Sky watchers
living above ~45 deg. geomagnetic latitude should remain alert
for auroras after local nightfall until further notice.
RADIATION
STORM: A powerful X-class solar flare erupted near sunspot group
9393 on March 29th at 1015 UT. The blast sent a coronal mass ejection
toward Earth (see above) and triggered an ongoing S1-class proton
storm around our planet.
Equation:
Sunspots => Solar Flares => Magnetic
Shift => Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents => Extreme
Weather
(mb)
Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com
BOULDER, Colo.
(UPI) -- A major solar flare erupted Thursday at 5:15 am EST from
the largest sunspot area observed in a decade, according to the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A strong
radio blackout followed the burst, officials said, although geomagnetic
storms are expected to be minor and isolated.
Barbara McGehan,
a spokeswoman for the NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder
told United Press International that observers have been watching
the sunspot area for several weeks, detecting increased activity
and expecting a flare.
"But
because of the size of the sunspot, they're expecting more. This
is unlikely to be the only one," she said.
She added
that Thursday's flare-up is not what she would consider an extreme
event, explaining, the sun's activity cycle is around solar maximum.
However,
"the sunspot cycle was basically past maximum, so we were
surprised," Carsten Denker, a solar observation scientist
with the national Big Bear Solar Observatory in Big Bear, Calif.,
told UPI.
The sunspot
that spawned the flare was nonetheless of great interest to the
Big Bear observatory and to other solar observatories around the
world, even though it was less than one week old, he said.
"It
had the intensity, size and polarity to create a big one, but
because the cycle was on the wane, it wasn't expected. It's like
a short circuit. The energy is suddenly released. But we expected
more of these sooner," he sad.
Similar to
earthquakes, the magnitude of solar flares in measured in multiple
units. For solar flares, the smallest are M-class flares and the
largest are X-class flares, and each one is measured on a sliding
scale of intensity based on a set mathmatical formula.
Thursday's
flare was categorized as a X-10 flare, Denker explained. The largest
flare in the past two years was an X-20.
"It's
still a pretty big sized flare," he commented, "and
there's still a chance for more flares, but I doubt if any will
approach this size."
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